Episode Description
In Part Two of our conversation with Alexander Shaia, we move beyond theory and into practice—exploring what spiritual transformation actually looks like in real life.
In Part One, we traced the foundations of Dr. Shaia’s work and why his approach to the Gospels resonates so deeply with people navigating faith, doubt, and deconstruction. In this episode, we go deeper—into lived experience, inner change, and the courage it takes to move forward when certainty falls away.
Dr. Shaia shares how spiritual frameworks are meant to form us, not control us, and why the Christian tradition—at its best—has always been about movement, growth, and becoming. This conversation speaks especially to those who feel stuck between belief and disbelief, longing for a faith that can hold both honesty and hope.
About Our Guest
Alexander Shaia is a theologian, speaker, and author best known for his work on the transformational structure of the Gospels. His book, Heart and Mind, explores the fourfold journey found within the Christian tradition and presents a compelling alternative to rigid, belief-based models of faith.
Dr. Shaia’s work has become especially meaningful for those who are deconstructing inherited belief systems while still seeking depth, wisdom, and spiritual grounding.
Education:
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, 1991
Graduate Certificate, Pastoral Psychotherapy, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, 1982
Master of Religious Education, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, 1981
M.A., Counseling Education, University of Alabama in Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 1976
B.A., Cultural Anthropology, University of Notre Dame du lac, Notre Dame, IN, 1974
Jungian and Sandplay Studies, 1973 - Current; month intensive with Dora M. Kalff – Jungian analyst & originator of Sandplay, Zollikon, Switzerland, July/August 1989
Psychosynthesis Certificate, Psychosynthesis Training Institute, San Francisco, CA, Two year training, 1986-1988
Website: www.quadratos.org
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quadratos/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Quadratos1/featured
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderJohnShaia/
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00:12 --> 00:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the deconstruction as podcast.
00:14 --> 00:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host John Williamson and part two of this conversation took a little longer than we planned to make its way to you.
00:20 --> 00:28 [SPEAKER_01]: We've been in the middle of renovating our recording studio and office and like most renovation projects, he came with a few unexpected setbacks.
00:28 --> 00:35 [SPEAKER_01]: But the good news is it's finally coming together and we're really grateful to be back in this space and able to finish what we started.
00:36 --> 00:40 [SPEAKER_01]: One quick note before we dive in, if you want to help support the show,
00:40 --> 00:43 [SPEAKER_01]: and go deeper with the kinds of conversations we're having here.
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00:57 --> 01:00 [SPEAKER_01]: We're also going to share educational resources.
01:00 --> 01:06 [SPEAKER_01]: We've already got one up there, and it also comes with study guides that you can use on your own or with a group.
01:06 --> 01:13 [SPEAKER_01]: you can find all of that at the brand new Patreon under the new link, and it genuinely helps keep this work going.
01:13 --> 01:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And part one of my conversation with Dr. Alexander Shio, we explored the foundations of his work, and why it resonates so deeply with people who are wrestling with faith, doubt, and meeting.
01:23 --> 01:31 [SPEAKER_01]: And this next part we go deeper into that practice, transformation, and what it actually looks like to live these ideas in the real world.
01:31 --> 01:32 [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for being here.
01:32 --> 01:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's jump back into the conversation.
01:34 --> 01:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, take a few weeks off as we normally do at the very, very beginning of the year in January with brand new episodes and February, we are definitely recording many, many interviews as we speak.
01:47 --> 01:52 [SPEAKER_01]: We've already got a few and they can, including one that I think will be very, very timely.
01:52 --> 01:54 [SPEAKER_01]: That'll be the first one coming up.
01:54 --> 02:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to say too much, but it was a very fascinating and very unique type of interview.
02:01 --> 02:02 [SPEAKER_01]: that I did a few weeks back.
02:03 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_01]: So that is coming the very beginning of February.
02:06 --> 02:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, we'll be off the next few weeks until then.
02:10 --> 02:15 [SPEAKER_01]: But until then, enjoy part two with Alexander Freakin Shia.
02:23 --> 02:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's that's so it reminds me of I heard once and I don't recall who said it but stuck with me this idea that you know why did Why did Jesus speak in parables and it's because he's trying to change hearts not change minds and you know and when you teach You know through the vehicle the parable it sits with you and it makes you think about it long after that conversation is gotten you know and past
02:53 --> 03:07 [SPEAKER_01]: So let's, let's get into Christmas because I, you know, I think that central to your work in the sense that we're, you know, we're coming out of winter at that point and we're literally talking about the birth of the Christ and so Christmas in incarnation are absolutely obviously central to your work.
03:08 --> 03:16 [SPEAKER_01]: How do you understand the the relationship between the cosmic liturgical rhythms of the seasons are nature cycles and the gospel narrative.
03:17 --> 03:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the missing piece and how I wish we understood this better in it.
03:23 --> 03:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of our scholars have not yet gotten this and if there's a publisher out there who shares this, I'm looking for a publisher for my Christmas book, Christianity chose to tell the
03:42 --> 03:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is what it was never in those early centuries.
03:46 --> 03:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me just tell you about Yeshua.
03:48 --> 03:52 [SPEAKER_00]: It was, let me tell you about the Yeshua of autumn.
03:53 --> 03:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about the Yeshua of winter.
03:56 --> 03:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about the Yeshua of spring.
03:59 --> 04:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about the Yeshua of summer.
04:01 --> 04:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And then how summer bins back again to autumn.
04:12 --> 04:22 [SPEAKER_00]: But follow that reality, experience that reality in your body as you experience the God of nature.
04:23 --> 04:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mean that nature is God, but it's like nature is giving us an understanding and an experience of Yeshua.
04:32 --> 04:39 [SPEAKER_00]: So in our early Jewishness,
04:39 --> 05:06 [SPEAKER_00]: that when day turns tonight, this is the beginning time, just as the first words of Genesis, the world was wild, and the breath of God was hovering over the abyss, over the darkness,
05:07 --> 05:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And so when we as Christians of the Mediterranean world went north of the Alps, we met the Celtic world.
05:21 --> 05:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to understand that the Celtic world was not just what we might think of as Ireland Britain.
05:28 --> 05:36 [SPEAKER_00]: We now understand that the Celtic world is a culture extended from today, what is Ireland
05:38 --> 06:01 [SPEAKER_00]: That entire breath of the planet, but not going below the Alps into the Mediterranean basin, was the Celtic culture, and the Celtic culture was a culture which understood its entire year through the life of the sun, as you in.
06:03 --> 06:12 [SPEAKER_00]: and the most important festival for them was that festival when the sun was reborn, i.e.
06:12 --> 06:16 [SPEAKER_00]: quote the winner's solstice.
06:16 --> 06:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So when we as Christians came out of the Mediterranean north of the Celtic world, and we brought a Mediterranean essentially still a moon-based culture to a sun-based
06:32 --> 06:33 [SPEAKER_00]: they couldn't understand us.
06:35 --> 06:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So we did what Christianity is always done best.
06:38 --> 06:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll tell us the story you do understand.
06:43 --> 06:58 [SPEAKER_00]: And they tell us this story about the son being reborn at the winter solstice, which they believed was reborn because of their spiritual practice to create that rebirth.
07:00 --> 07:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And we went
07:03 --> 07:06 [SPEAKER_00]: but we know a deeper reality in that very same story.
07:08 --> 07:14 [SPEAKER_00]: We know the reality of a son S-O-N that is always with us.
07:15 --> 07:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And we know that that S-O-N is born a new in us in the midst of every great darkness.
07:25 --> 07:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And we know that because of that reaper, that increase of the grace of the SON in us in the dark, that we do not need to fear the dark.
07:39 --> 07:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we took, in its very important for us as Christians to remember, we did not have a feast of, quote, unquote, Christmas until we met the Celtic world.
07:53 --> 08:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And we created the Feast of Christmas because they needed to transition their great Feast of the Winner's Solstice so that they could come to experience our Yeshua, the Christus, Jesus the Christ.
08:13 --> 08:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the Feast of the Winner's Solstice became the Feast of Christmas.
08:20 --> 08:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And why?
08:21 --> 08:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Because in nature, nature is helping us physically experience the spiritual reality that we know is true, that the Christ is with us.
08:37 --> 08:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And that in the dark times of our life
08:49 --> 09:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the most remarkable things was when we had to change the calendar because for thousands of years we had to have a calendar with there was 360 days a year rather than 360 or 65 days a year and we had to get the calendar back in cycle with the growing season.
09:11 --> 09:14 [SPEAKER_00]: which meant that we needed to add three days to each year.
09:14 --> 09:20 [SPEAKER_00]: We needed to go from a 362-day calendar to a 365-day-day-year calendar.
09:21 --> 09:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what it meant is that the feast of Christmas that had always intended to be on the winter solstice.
09:30 --> 09:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want Christians to hear that Christmas has always intended, fully intended, was created to be on the winter solstice because nature is telling us the same story.
09:44 --> 09:47 [SPEAKER_00]: So now we had this, what are we going to do?
09:47 --> 09:55 [SPEAKER_00]: We've got three days now because the winner's host is now slips back to either decimber the 22nd or decimber the 21st.
09:55 --> 09:56 [SPEAKER_00]: What are we going to do?
09:56 --> 09:56 [SPEAKER_00]: What are we going to do?
09:57 --> 10:03 [SPEAKER_00]: How do we, do we move Christmas back to that or do we keep Christmas on the traditional day of the 20th?
10:06 --> 10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Balliums are written as theologians up in their heads and night in their bodies trying to figure this out.
10:15 --> 10:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And nature was giving us a beautiful answer about why and how Christmas can be on December 25th.
10:24 --> 10:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Three days passed the winter solstice.
10:29 --> 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Why?
10:30 --> 10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Because we know at the solstice time whether it's the winter solstice or the summer solstice, the word solstice means soul, sun,
10:42 --> 10:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That to the naked eye, the sun seems to stand still, meaning that at the winners' solstice, we can't see it glinkening, and at the summer solstice, we can't see it shortening.
10:58 --> 10:59 [SPEAKER_00]: For three days.
11:02 --> 11:09 [SPEAKER_00]: So now we have the most perfect experience in the Northern Hemisphere.
11:11 --> 11:27 [SPEAKER_00]: because in December of the 25th, on the morning of Christmas of December of the 25th, Northern Hemisphere, the naked eye can now perceive the light is growing again.
11:33 --> 11:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The entire Christian calendar was created
11:39 --> 11:51 [SPEAKER_00]: to tell the story of Yeshua through the physical experience of nature matched with the stories from the Gospel.
11:54 --> 11:59 [SPEAKER_00]: We are a nature calendar telling the story of Jesus.
12:03 --> 12:03 [SPEAKER_01]: That's beautiful.
12:05 --> 12:09 [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to talk about the book that we are bound to determine to get a publisher for.
12:09 --> 12:18 [SPEAKER_01]: The opening, opening the gift of Christmas, where you explore symbols like evergreen trees and lights which
12:18 --> 12:19 [SPEAKER_01]: part of my favorite part of the tradition.
12:20 --> 12:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I have little glow villages and Christmas lights everywhere.
12:24 --> 12:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
12:25 --> 12:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Especially in the depths of winter when there's just, you know, there's no leaves on the trees and everything appears to be dead, you know, and I need a little color.
12:34 --> 12:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So from your perspective, what deeper theological or psychological significance do these carry?
12:41 --> 12:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, so again, especially
12:48 --> 12:55 [SPEAKER_00]: and how we took the Celtic symbols and saw a deeper story.
12:57 --> 13:14 [SPEAKER_00]: So, on the day before the winter solstice, the Celts were decorating the oak tree, whose leaves had fallen and it was now barren, and they were placing dried fruits in the oak tree.
13:15 --> 13:23 [SPEAKER_00]: because the oatry was a symbol of or an expression of the life of the sun as you in.
13:25 --> 13:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And on the winter solstice, they were gonna celebrate the sun's birth, the S-U-N's birth.
13:33 --> 13:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And they celebrated it by this celebration of the returning life of the oak, by tying these beautiful dried fruits in it.
13:45 --> 13:49 [SPEAKER_00]: and apparently also ropes and ribbons and other things.
13:50 --> 13:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we saw that week, all right.
13:55 --> 14:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The winner's solstice, we now understand as the festival of the birth of the S-O-N. And that in the birth of the S-O-N, the garden of Eden, the gates to the garden of Eden,
14:13 --> 14:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And we know about the Great Tree and the Garden of Eden.
14:19 --> 14:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, the day before this beautiful feast of the Christos with us, we will celebrate the Great Sacred Tree of all.
14:32 --> 14:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, we made December the 24th, the Feast of Adam and Eve, and it became the day
14:40 --> 14:54 [SPEAKER_00]: to bring the sacred tree either to decorate it in the village or to bring it into our homes and to celebrate the awe and the wonder and the mystery of the SOA.
14:58 --> 15:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, you naturally progressed into my next question.
15:01 --> 15:09 [SPEAKER_01]: So you've highlighted how the term and I love this part, by the way, you've highlighted how the term evening or Eve celebrates the feminine.
15:09 --> 15:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Night brings intimacy, mystery, and renewal.
15:11 --> 15:16 [SPEAKER_01]: How does that shape or understanding of Christmas Eve and the role of the feminine in the story of incarnation?
15:17 --> 15:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, John.
15:18 --> 15:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I get a little testy because our culture has changed the meaning of
15:25 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The word Eve and Eve is shorthand for evening.
15:32 --> 15:35 [SPEAKER_00]: It is not 24 hours ahead of the feast.
15:35 --> 15:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It is the beginning of the feast.
15:38 --> 15:54 [SPEAKER_00]: When you go past sunset on December the 24th, you are now in Christmas Eve meeting, which is the beginning of Christmas
15:55 --> 16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's this beautiful understanding that the night time is womb time, is Eve time, is mother time, is dark time.
16:09 --> 16:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And we return to that place in every holy night, and it is
16:26 --> 16:30 [SPEAKER_00]: and we go through the night until dawn and day.
16:31 --> 16:44 [SPEAKER_00]: So in the ancient understanding in Christendom, every great feast day begins at sunset and becomes a journey through night today.
16:44 --> 16:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Always reminding us that our wise move when night time falls, please know,
16:53 --> 16:55 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the beginning time.
16:55 --> 16:57 [SPEAKER_00]: I know it doesn't feel good.
16:57 --> 17:03 [SPEAKER_00]: I know it feels scary, but there's a deeper reality in the nighttime.
17:04 --> 17:06 [SPEAKER_00]: That's beginning time.
17:06 --> 17:19 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the time where the grace of the S.O.S.N.S.O.N increases in us and holds us till dawn and through the coming of day.
17:21 --> 17:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know if you want me to do the four gospels of Christmas, but the four gospels of Christmas again in our ancient tradition in and how I wish more of us understood this.
17:34 --> 17:41 [SPEAKER_00]: that there were four gospels that were paired to the time of night or day that the gospel was read.
17:41 --> 17:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that
17:43 --> 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've gone to my, my nieces and nephews and my great nieces and great nephews and the Christmas page and I love the Christmas page.
17:50 --> 17:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Please don't hear that I'm trying to, in any way, take away from that or less in it.
17:55 --> 17:57 [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the ancient cycle.
17:57 --> 18:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The first gospel of Christmas is the gospel that's read just after sunset on December the 20th Essence.
18:05 --> 18:18 [SPEAKER_00]: As soon as night falls on December the 24th in the spiritual calendar, you're not on the 24th anymore, you're on the 25th, and the first gospel is the genealogy from Matthew.
18:18 --> 18:19 [SPEAKER_00]: What the heck?
18:20 --> 18:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Who wants to read that is the Christmas gospel?
18:23 --> 18:30 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the story that gospel is the story of how night falls and a miracle happens.
18:30 --> 18:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Night falls and a miracle happens.
18:33 --> 18:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Night falls and a miracle happens.
18:34 --> 18:38 [SPEAKER_00]: They're all these very strange stories that are in that genealogy.
18:38 --> 18:41 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have time to go into every one of them.
18:41 --> 19:00 [SPEAKER_00]: but know that every time that genealogy tells of a particular woman, that woman is bringing to us a story when something very untoward and seemingly hurtful happened, and the blessing grew and continued.
19:01 --> 19:06 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the first proclamation as we go into the night of Christmas.
19:08 --> 19:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The second proclamation later in the night, maybe even midnight, but deep in the Christmas night, was the gospel, or is the gospel from Luke, where the angel comes to the shepherds, to proclaim the birth.
19:30 --> 19:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Now,
19:32 --> 19:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The gospel tells us that the shepherds are out in the fields, it's night time.
19:37 --> 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: We also need to know that the shepherds in those days were not kindly folk, they were shepherds who were out there in the fields because they had gone against some more air the village and were literally condemned to be out in the fields because they were unclean.
19:54 --> 19:59 [SPEAKER_00]: That's who the angels come to in the night to proclaim the birth.
20:01 --> 20:16 [SPEAKER_00]: that the birth of the SON and as comes to us in those places that are hurt, in those places of great need, in those places of dis-ease.
20:19 --> 20:25 [SPEAKER_00]: But the gospel told in the night stops at that point with the proclamation.
20:26 --> 20:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Then the third gospel of Christmas is the gospel that's told at dawn, and at dawn, we read the gospel of the shepherds coming to the manger and see.
20:44 --> 20:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Just as we are seeing the rising sun
20:53 --> 20:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, the gospel is telling us the deeper story that nature is also telling us.
21:02 --> 21:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And then finally, the fourth and final gospel of Christmas, not the gospel that most of us come to church to hear, is the prologue from the gospel of John, which reminds us
21:24 --> 21:34 [SPEAKER_00]: that's going on everywhere, that's been going on across time, that is going to go on for all time, and has been coming to all people.
21:36 --> 21:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So the Christmas is not the story only of a historical moment.
21:42 --> 21:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It's also the story of every present moment, wherever you are.
21:53 --> 21:55 [SPEAKER_01]: love to hear your elections on.
21:55 --> 22:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the things that that people love so much about the last time you came on and you did sort of a Christmas reflection for us like gosh probably like six years ago now, at least.
22:06 --> 22:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it had to be a way too long.
22:08 --> 22:10 [SPEAKER_01]: It was that I think it was
22:11 --> 22:27 [SPEAKER_01]: infused with hope, and I think people, especially in their own times of darkness, whether it be, you know, the current political climate we find ourselves in, or, or more, something more personal, maybe they've had a death in the family of a very dear loved one, and, and Christmas is maybe a particularly hard time for them.
22:28 --> 22:37 [SPEAKER_01]: How might listeners find radians for born and their own winter darkness, even if they approach the season from maybe a deconstructed or post institutional point of view?
22:41 --> 22:43 [SPEAKER_00]: let's understand first of all that.
22:45 --> 23:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Christmas is one of those moments that if it's been a year of greater ease and perhaps maybe with financial resources or with dear family around, the feast feels all the more full, equally if it's been a hard year.
23:03 --> 23:15 [SPEAKER_00]: If there's been downturn, if there has been death, if there are arguments and divisions within the family, Christmas will very likely be more difficult.
23:15 --> 23:28 [SPEAKER_00]: At Christmas is one of those moments that it's almost a mirror to us to the year that's come before it, that it lives us or makes the pain even greater.
23:30 --> 23:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So please, please do not feel that you must have this joyous upside if your year has been difficult.
23:45 --> 23:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And please note that
23:49 --> 24:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The nature is trying to help us experience the same reality that our tradition has been teaching us, that at some point the dark will lift.
24:06 --> 24:11 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be a day on our calendar that we can plot out how I wish it was.
24:12 --> 24:20 [SPEAKER_00]: How I wish I knew the day that the sun rather than waning began to grow again.
24:21 --> 24:29 [SPEAKER_00]: But that Christmas does help us understand that dark times do end.
24:31 --> 24:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And that always the Christ is with us, always.
24:38 --> 24:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Lean on that.
24:43 --> 24:54 [SPEAKER_01]: things I, you know, I'm, I'm curious to get your, your thoughts on our, you know, I think society in general has a discomfort with darkness, whether literal or metaphorical.
24:54 --> 24:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like that gets in the way of fully experiencing Christmas?
24:59 --> 24:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
25:00 --> 25:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The whole idea of Christmas lights are culture is basically told is that we're lighting, we're lighting lights against the dark.
25:11 --> 25:15 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not the deepest understanding in Christian spirituality.
25:15 --> 25:18 [SPEAKER_00]: What we are doing is we are decorating the dark.
25:19 --> 25:23 [SPEAKER_00]: We are understanding the dark is a holy face.
25:24 --> 25:37 [SPEAKER_00]: of our God, perhaps even of our God as mother as feminine, who wants to embrace and comfort and remit and recreate us in this dark time.
25:38 --> 25:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we light these miraculous lights to decorate this womb time where God is healing
25:55 --> 26:06 [SPEAKER_00]: I spent five years between New Zealand and Australia, where Christmas is sadly for them, not at the winter solstice, but the summer solstice.
26:06 --> 26:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody puts up lights.
26:08 --> 26:09 [SPEAKER_00]: What?
26:09 --> 26:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The sun doesn't go down to 11 o'clock at night.
26:14 --> 26:15 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very different experience.
26:15 --> 26:25 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to take away from that culture, but as someone who has spent their whole lives except those five years
26:27 --> 26:38 [SPEAKER_00]: to light those lights in the depths of the dark, and to what to remind me that the depth of the dark is actually rebirthing the light.
26:42 --> 26:56 [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things that I know today is that I encourage people, if you need to put your tree up in November, there is something that can be something quite uplifting for us as
26:56 --> 27:05 [SPEAKER_00]: to have those lights up reminding us that this darkness is about a rebirth of radiance.
27:08 --> 27:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, there's something absolutely therapeutic about it and something almost depressing about when that time comes when you're still hanging in there and you still have your lights up and you realize you're like, I probably need to take these down, it's February, you know, but it's still so dark out and and especially as you said in the Northern Hemisphere, you know, it's kind of a winter wasteland, you know, and so you're just kind of yearning for that that light and that that brightness and
27:35 --> 27:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I can please.
27:37 --> 27:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if people need encouragement, I realize it's a sort of countercultural, but please remember that in the ancient tradition, the Christmas tide went till the second February.
27:47 --> 27:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm one of these people who does not take my treat out until the second February.
27:53 --> 28:00 [SPEAKER_00]: I like to carry the gifts of that nightly radiance throughout the dark season.
28:01 --> 28:02 [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
28:02 --> 28:02 [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
28:03 --> 28:06 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm, I'm probably going to do it, but it's well, I need it.
28:06 --> 28:07 [SPEAKER_01]: That's beautiful.
28:07 --> 28:10 [SPEAKER_01]: So let people know, what are you working on these days?
28:10 --> 28:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And what are you up to?
28:12 --> 28:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Is, is, is quadratos.org still the best kind of place to go for, you know, for them to stay up on top of what you're up to get your books and that sort of thing.
28:22 --> 28:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Please, we've just done a complete new website.
28:26 --> 28:27 [SPEAKER_00]: It's still the same address.
28:27 --> 28:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Quadratus QUADRATOS.org.
28:33 --> 28:34 [SPEAKER_00]: We have now become.org.
28:35 --> 28:51 [SPEAKER_00]: By the time people are hearing this podcast, we will, we already have our 501c3 status, but we still have some further documentation, which is going into the government, just momentarily, by the end of this year, we will be able to receive tax exempt donations.
28:51 --> 29:18 [SPEAKER_00]: We are birthing the Quadrottis Foundation and the Quadrottis Foundation is looking to create the Quadrottis School to open by September of 2027 and this is going to be a place for community facilitators, community conveners, ministers, clergy if they wish to learn the journey of
29:18 --> 29:22 [SPEAKER_00]: small neighborhood communities to mega churches.
29:22 --> 29:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The journey of the four gospels is not just a map.
29:26 --> 29:34 [SPEAKER_00]: It is a map, but it also has the practice of how to hold diversity in increasing harmony.
29:35 --> 29:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And gosh, do we not need to learn how to hold diversity within increasing harmony?
29:42 --> 29:55 [SPEAKER_00]: So we are now in the process of raising funds, forming faculty, et cetera, but I hope to initiate the school, which will largely be an online process beginning in September of 2027.
29:57 --> 30:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond that, we have a new program called The Four Gospel Journey, which is just 11 sessions, online or in person, which is an introduction to this map and this practice of The Four Gospels.
30:14 --> 30:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have our deeper process, which is called a heart and mind circle, which is upwards of a two-year journey with a small group of people who want to truly live into this map and cycle and practice of Yeshua at the Christus.
30:35 --> 30:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot's going on, much of it's sort of behind the scenes right now, and I'm still looking for a publisher for the Christmas book.
30:44 --> 30:46 [SPEAKER_01]: I will put the word out.
30:46 --> 30:48 [SPEAKER_01]: I would love to see that in print.
30:48 --> 30:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I will put everything in the show notes.
30:51 --> 30:55 [SPEAKER_01]: So folks can go stay tuned, pay attention to the website.
30:55 --> 30:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Go by the books that are available now.
30:56 --> 30:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Heart and mind is out there.
30:58 --> 30:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely incredible.
30:59 --> 31:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And as always, it's always a pleasure.
31:01 --> 31:04 [SPEAKER_01]: We always have such a good conversation when you come on.
31:04 --> 31:05 [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much.
31:06 --> 31:07 [SPEAKER_00]: John, thank you.
31:07 --> 31:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I've been looking forward to this and it did not disappoint.
31:10 --> 31:11 [SPEAKER_01]: So same.
31:11 --> 31:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Go well, brother.
31:17 --> 31:32 [SPEAKER_02]: To see a light so low in the sky, To follow it blindly, To see it shining so bright.
31:33 --> 31:36 [SPEAKER_02]: Then the stars know the light was true.
31:47 --> 32:13 [SPEAKER_02]: They're telling the story that can save the world Tell them the story that can save the world Did they understand the fate of the world
32:13 --> 32:32 [SPEAKER_02]: They were part of the story, part of a master plan Then the stars know the light will show We'll wait to the save
32:40 --> 33:03 [SPEAKER_02]: It's telling the story that can save the world Tell them the story that can save the world The stars hung in the sky
33:04 --> 33:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Gazing upon the world, that night A world that was different And finally, I have a chance In the stars, no the light was shown The way to the Savior
33:39 --> 33:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I fell in the story back at the sea, the world I fell in the story back at the sea, the world I fell in the story back at the sea